


Domestic

by tiamatv



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Temporary Character Death, Castiel and Dean Winchester in Love, Domesticity in the Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Future Fic, Kid Fic, M/M, Married Castiel/Dean Winchester, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, pillows, ridiculously happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:00:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27585770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiamatv/pseuds/tiamatv
Summary: A little less than a year after the world doesn’t end, he and Cas get married.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Comments: 64
Kudos: 365





	Domestic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThePornFairy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePornFairy/gifts).



> This is schmoop and tooth-rotting fluff. Completely. Unrepentantly. There is no rug-yanking, there is no plot, this is domestic middle aged bliss. There is maybe a tiny bit of boys being stupid with their emotions. And then, hopefully, not stupid with their emotions.
> 
> There are some references to early S15, but nothing particularly spoilery for late season 15 if you haven't seen it.
> 
> [Alee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePornFairy/pseuds/ThePornFairy), your prompt gave me heart-eyes, and produced cuddlefluff!

A little less than a year after the world doesn’t end, he and Cas get married.

Dean’s the one who pops the question—which he’d think should surprise no one, so it’s kind of insulting when he starts making calls to invite people, and they’re all… really fucking surprised.

“Is this because he’s sort of a guy?” Dean demands, finally, fed up with it.

“Nah, ya idjit,” Bobby—goddammit, _Bobby_ ; even six months later, Dean’s still not over hearing that voice in his ear, not a recording or a memory or a leftover phone. “I mean, maybe, but who gives a shit about that after everything? No one ever thought you’d get your head outta your ass about the angel, that’s all. Even with the way he always looked at you, didn’t seem like you even noticed.”

What’s that supposed to mean? “Hey, how would you know? You barely knew the guy, you know… before.” Before Bobby took a bullet to the brain. Before they had to burn his memory into ash, not just his body. Before…

Those memories aren’t ever going to go away, Dean knows. He wouldn’t have wanted them to, even when they hurt—back when he thought that memories were all he was going to have left of Bobby. There’s something weird and right about talking to him about this now.

It wasn’t that Bobby ever tried to talk them out of the life, because he was never much of a talker anyway—but he did all of the _raising_ of him and Sam out of the life that he could.

(Their Dad and Mom got offered the same deal to come back that Bobby did. They didn’t take it. So… Dean doesn’t know what to think of that.)

Bobby makes a loud noise that’s half cough and half snort. “Yeah, right, and if _I’m_ sayin’ it, imagine what everyone who had to watch him pining after you for _years_ has had to swallow down.” Dean can almost hear him shrug. “I mean, if you’re happy about it, then just be happy ‘bout it. Right? That’ll stick in the craw of anyone who’s got aught to say ‘bout it faster than an angel blade.”

Dean’s really, really missed the way Bobby says shit.

Cas, the sassy asshole, winks at the couple lining up after them for marriage licenses at the Smith County courthouse. The guy recoils back like Cas threw a punch at him. But the girl—and she really is a girl; she’s half Dean’s age, if even that—smiles back, weakly. Her smile widens a bit when Cas’s hand falls to the small of Dean’s back. It’s sort of sweet.

“Might as well just pee in a circle around me,” Dean says, on the courthouse steps, before he realizes he should not say shit like that before clarifying that he’s kidding first. Cas can still be shockingly literal. Either that or really good at faking it, since Dean’s seen him pull out the oblivious act now and again for folk who just don’t know any better: when he commits, he _commits_.

That’s true in so many ways, when it comes to Cas.

“You asked me to marry you, Dean. You can’t blame me for being happy about it,” Cas says, and the wonder trembling in the back of his deep voice makes Dean realize: yeah, everyone else was surprised that Dean was the one who asked… but _Cas_ was surprised, too.

Cas’s palm is still resting on the small of his back as they make it to the bottom of the steps. But he jumps when Dean reaches out and—okay, maybe a little aggressively—sticks his hand firmly into Cas’s back pocket. Yeah, right there, right where everyone can see. It’s a bit of a tight fit, because dammit, Cas is wearing Dean’s jeans again.

(Dean really shouldn’t have told him how much he likes that, because Cas abuses that power like fucking _crazy_.)

They walk the whole way back to Baby like that.

They get married on September 18th. Sam almost laughs himself out of the room when he hears what date they chose (though that might be Dean throwing shoes at him until he leaves). Charlie, Minister of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster—they believe everyone’s descended from pirates; hell yeah, this is religion Dean can get behind, since Jack does _not_ want a Church of Jack—officiates with a happy, “You’re married, huzzah! Now let’s eat!”

Cas already has a birth certificate and social security card under ‘Castiel Shurley,’ since they needed it for the marriage license. It’s technically true, since it’s not like anyone ever gets to pick their parentage, and Dean figures Chuck _owes_ them at least that much. On their wedding day, Dean presents Cas with an official, _non-fake_ driver’s license, a gmail address (it’s sort of screwed-up that this one was the hardest to get) and a real live joint bank account, all under the same name.

 _Castiel Winchester_ , fuck, yeah.

“This makes me officially older than you. The government says so,” Cas says, with a sigh, tilting his driver’s license back and forth like he’s watching the holographic flash of it. It was a bitch to find a proper picture to get put in it. Most of the pictures of Cas that Dean’s got—and he might have more than a few, now—are kind of when he’s doing stupid human shit: sitting crosslegged on top of the washer like a weird bird, looking suspicious, because apparently that’s a thing that people do in movies a lot; being so interested in what he’s reading on his phone that he forgets he’s got a toothbrush sticking out of the corner of his mouth; lying out on their bed, sleepy-eyed, in nothing but one of Dean’s flannel overshirts (yes, oh fuck yes).

(Sam doesn’t flip through the pictures on Dean’s phone anymore. Serves him right, anyway.)

“You’re gonna say you aren’t?” Dean laughs, and settles their sides together. “ _I_ wasn’t around for the damned plagues of Egypt.” 

“I do have a lot less experience with being human,” Cas answers, thoughtfully plucking at the cuff of his dark blue Henley. The dark, dark wash jeans he’s wearing are new enough that they creak a little as he shifts his weight, but _damn_ , what they do for his ass. “But I’m enjoying learning.”

They watch their guests eating and drinking and sharing stories. Jo looks like she’s trying to climb up Sammy’s back. Sam’s arms are too long to swat her off. Eileen, on his other side, looks like she’s helping Jo stay up there, so it can’t be anything too bad. Bobby has cheese in his beard. Ash has cheese in his _mullet_. Jack, who probably wouldn't have missed this even if he were mediating atoms on the other end of the universe or whatever it is someone who took over for God has to do, is sitting cross-legged in the middle of the map table, drawing something for Kevin in the condensation of a beer bottle.

When Cas reaches for his hand, Dean doesn’t pull away. He probably doesn’t deserve to be proud of himself for that, considering that they got bullied into fucking _slow dancing_ together in front of everyone earlier, but he is. And Cas's chin hooked over his shoulder felt kind of nice, the gentle scratch of their faces cheek to cheek warm and cozy.

Their fingers interlock. Cas’s palm is a little sweaty, because as a human, he sweats, now (and he hates it, which is sort of cute). The tattoo of a handprint on Dean’s left shoulder and bicep itches a little every time they touch like this.

It’s not a bad itch, though. Kind of a tingle. There’s no reason it should—it’s ink, not scar, not anything else, and Cas isn’t an angel anymore anyway—but it does.

“Will anyone miss us if we disappear?” Cas asks, hopefully. His hand tightens through Dean’s.

Yup. They definitely will. No-one will ever let them forget that they bugged out on their own reception.

“Nope,” Dean lies, cheerfully. “Let’s go.”

After Sam and Eileen finally move out, a little over a year later, he picks fights with Cas over completely stupid shit for weeks—how he washes the dishes; the way he steals blankets; him ‘borrowing’ Dean’s clothes. Even though he knew it was coming; they all did. They had months to prepare for it: Sam’s school applications, Eileen’s certification and the facility groundbreaking and the weeks she was gone interviewing teachers. Sam doesn’t even go far—just to Kansas City, so Eileen can start setting up her school and Sam can finally go back to law school.

But there are some things that Dean can be an adult about, and it looks like there are some things he just… can’t.

Poor Kevin tiptoes around the two of them like they’re carrying grenades in their pockets, and Charlie calls them both “stupid bitches” and fucks off to stay with Stevie for a while. The bruised look in Dean’s husband’s eyes almost throbs louder than the echoing space where Dean’s brother just isn’t _there_ anymore, the emptiness where he’s not coming back.

But when Cas finally starts sleeping in one of the guest rooms—taking all three of his pillows, because he is a dramatic little shit, but he does like his pillows—the silence he leaves behind in their bedroom is so awful. It’s full of the past; it’s full of a decade of not knowing, of not _saying_. But Dean does know, he knows better now, so why is he still…?

The look Sam gives him when they meet for dinner on Sunday night, two weeks later, and Dean and Cas are barely talking, is probably the worst. Probably.

Then the way that Eileen just shakes her head as she watches both of them proves Dean wrong.

“I’m sorry,” Dean says, once they get back into Baby. They met Sam and Eileen halfway, this time, in Junction City. The drive makes him realize just how _near_ Sam still is—four hours drive is nothing, to them, wrapped in Baby’s familiar grumble. “Goddammit. I’m really sorry, Cas.”

Cas looks out the window and doesn’t say anything in answer to that, not at first. Dean opens his mouth to snap—Jesus fuck, he’s apologized, the least Cas can do is _respond_ —but that thought feels sour and bitter and hypocritical in his mouth. After a long second of not letting out that poison, Dean realizes why.

Dean shuts his dumb trap, starts the car, and drives. He doesn't turn on the radio.

An hour in, Cas says, still not looking at him, “You’re an asshole.”

It’s true, so Dean doesn’t argue with him.

Thirty minutes later, Cas says, “You should call Charlie and tell her to come home.”

It’s the weirdest way that Dean’s ever had someone tell him that they're okay, but that’s just sort of… Cas.

"Want a backrub?" he offers, softly, as they pull into the garage.

"Yes," Cas answers. And then, just as softly, "I forgive you."

For a weird, nerdy former angel, he's so much better than Dean at knowing what to say when.

The next morning, Dean jerks awake again with his heart beating too fast and the back of his tongue sour with bile. It’s not a nightmare—

No, that’s not true. It is. It’s just… it’s not blood and death and Death. It’s not the Empty, it’s not demons. It’s not Cas’s soft smile when he gave himself up for Dean’s life again and again, or Sam’s dead body limp and heavy in Dean’s arms all those years ago, or the way Jack looked up the barrel of his gun, on his knees at Dean’s feet. Dean doesn’t have nightmares about vampires and werewolves, unfunnily enough. He’s probably killed a few too many of them.

But it’s the way the bunker door slammed, the sound of it echoing like a crowbar to the ribs, when Cas walked out of his life and left Dean sitting there, choking silently on his own rage and hurt. It’s the silence he left behind him—one that not even Sam could fill, that not even _hunting_ could fill. Because being angry with Cas, with the world, was just as important as being right, and so much less painful than loving him was.

It’s the same nightmare he’s had for the past week, with their bed empty—without Cas curled at his back, warm, with his face snugged behind Dean’s neck and his arms curled up under his chin behind Dean’s back, snoring softly in tiny little snort-whiffles.

Because Cas snores—of course he does.

Cas didn’t storm out of the bunker, though. Dean knows he wouldn’t—won’t, never, not when he’s mad, not when Dean is. There’s a lot of shit between them still—there’ll always be, that’s a fact. It’s not like they’d ever be able to talk it out with a therapist, even if the idea of that didn’t give Dean a rash just thinking about it. But _that_ particular move carries too many knives.

The nightmare still makes Dean sit up and swing his legs over the edge of the bed, gasping and leaning forward and aching all over. Because his mind still _believes_ that Cas just leaving him again is possible in a way that Dean knows that vampires and wendigo and ghosts and the Empty won’t happen anymore. And he knows that if it happens, it’ll be his own doing, just like it was that night—not some monster’s.

Cas stirs behind him. “Dean?” he asks, sleepily. “S’still early.”

Cas’s mental clock is still better than anyone’s. He knows just what time it is, no matter when or where they are. The little random leftover bits of angel are pretty weird.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Cas, I…” Dean twists back towards him, ready to apologize again, but Cas has already closed his eyes again, turning over. He grumbles into his forearm like the sound of gravel crunching under an approaching car.

He looks comfy. He looks like he's gonna stay.

Dean just watches him go back to sleep—because he can. Because Cas is back in their memory foam queen bed with one arm tucked under his chin and his wedding band gleaming in the soft nightlight. But Cas frowns a little and worms his body forward into the warm spot that Dean left behind, shifting his shoulders in annoyance when he doesn’t find Dean there.

The little forehead-wrinkly scowl Dean loves to tease out of him is out in full force as Cas pats around blindly, and locates Dean’s still-warm pillow instead. Cas has always liked pillows—he’ll hug one in his sleep if Dean’s not there, and the weirdo sleeps with like three under his head, so they’ve accumulated a bunch. He hauls it towards him, mumbling something as he sticks his face into it, but no sooner has he done so than he pushes it away from him and grabs another one, looking dissatisfied.

As Dean watches, blinking, Cas sleepily drags enough of their pillows around to smother himself, wrapping himself in pillows on all sides. One at a time. One under his head. Two at his back. Two in front of him. He kicks another one away with a flick of his foot then reaches out that same foot, squirming, to grab the corner between his toes and pull it back towards him, finally wedging it between his knees.

Then he huffs, sounding annoyed, and sticks his face back into the very first one he grabbed, just the tip of his nose and the disorderly mess of his hair visible over the pillowcase fluff. He snuffles, once. The sound of him snoring again—now pretty much buried in a goddamned _nest_ of pillows, and probably drooling into Dean’s—starts up a heartbeat later.

Sonofabitch. Even after all these years, Dean doesn’t know what to do, sometimes, with how much these weird, tiny little moments punch him in the throat with how much he loves Cas. It’s overwhelming; it hurts.

He’s never giving this up. If there’s anything that Dean Winchester has fought for and bled for and _dreamed_ for even when he didn’t dare think he could have dreams, it’s this. He just needs to get out of his own fucking way to have it.

Cas kisses him absolutely, breathlessly _stupid,_ practically bends him back over the map table, when he gets home from work later that evening. Dean doesn’t think that getting up a little early and making Cas lunch and a thermos of tea to bring to the flower shop with him should provoke _that_ kind of reaction, but he’ll take it.

Dean sort of hears the screech of “Guys, come _on!_ ” as an ex-prophet turns and leaves double-time. With one hand in his husband’s hair and the other on his hip, he just doesn’t care. Sorry, Kevin.

(And if Dean starts waking up a little earlier every couple of days for work and slipping out of bed just to watch Cas squirm himself into a cozy, grumpy little pillow nest, well, he’ll never tell. But he does put in an online order and gets Cas two more pillows—really fluffy, big ones. The way Cas looks at Dean as he hugs them to his chest makes Charlie roll her eyes and say, “you two are queer, and for once, I don’t mean that as a compliment.”)

Four years later, two years after Kevin finally decided to go back to college, six months after Charlie and Stevie get married and move into an actual apartment—still in Lebanon; they run the same co-op as Max and Stacy—Dean comes back home from the garage to find Cas sitting in the Vault with a baby in his arms.

“Uh,” he says, his boots skidding. He doesn’t trip, but only because Dean almost never does. “Hi?” Because ‘You’re home early from work’ does not seem to encompass everything that’s going on right in front of him this second.

Both Cas _and_ the baby tip their heads to look at him. Okay. Are babies supposed to do that? Dean has no goddamned idea if babies do that.

“Her name is Rachel,” Cas tells him, his voice low and a little shaky in a way that Dean’s not used to hearing even from him as a human. One of his fingers is clamped tight in one tiny fist. It’s anyone’s guess who’s going to let go of who first. “I… she’s… she’s an angel who decided she didn’t want to be one anymore. So she's just a baby, now. I thought…”

He trails off. Cas doesn’t hesitate much. Not about things that matter, anyway. It’s always been his problem, and the best thing about him.

Dean sees Cas’s arm tighten up a little, holding the tiny baby closer to his chest in her fuzzy, thick green blanket, and he realizes: Cas doesn’t think that Dean will be okay with this.

Which he shouldn’t be. This is a _hell_ of a thing to spring on him. Dammit, Castiel.

The kid’s wrapped in a dark green blanket that looks like it weighs more than she does, and has thick dark hair that looks like she licked a light socket. She can’t be more than a few weeks old, but what the hell does Dean know? Her skin is so fine and thin he can see the veins under her eyelids.

She blinks aquarium eyes at him and doesn’t let go of Cas’s finger. Dean thinks it probably says something about how fucking shocked he was at walking into his home to this sight that he didn’t notice that there’s a glowing decanter of angel grace sitting on the table next to Cas.

They’ve talked about kids—sort of. Hell, they’ve already raised one—sort of. And clearly they did okay with him… but not until after everything went so damned wrong.

Goddammit, though, that baby looks _so fucking much_ like Cas.

“Think there’s a crib somewhere in the storeroom, or are we gonna buy one?” Dean hears himself say, so blinded by the picture in front of him that his fingers are trembling.

Cas starts staying home more—it wasn’t like they ever _needed_ two full incomes, since they still don’t pay for anything like water or electricity or rent. But Cas was sort of shockingly good at starting his new little business, and he wanted to keep busy, past the little garden on the bunker roof. Dean didn’t make much at the service station in town, not to start, but now he can fix almost _anything—_ body work, engines, even tractors. He makes more than enough for no-one in Lebanon to think their spending is suspicious. (Yeah, they’ve still got Charlie’s card. Just for emergencies now, though.)

Cas reads a bunch of baby books, and starts frequenting new parent forums. These days, his little flower shop in Salina is fully staffed, and it runs itself; Cas handles suppliers over the phone, and he still takes care of all the book-keeping and coordinates things like the big arrangements for weddings.

But Christ, Cas loves just being ‘Papa.’

Dean should have seen that coming, he guesses. Cas loved Jack so deeply that, secretly, Dean can acknowledge to himself now that part of why he behaved so damned _badly_ was that he was a little jealous. (Yes, it’s weird, and yeah, he’s not proud of it.) Cas just doesn’t have the weird baggage about parents and parenting that Dean does: Chuck had a grand total of zero involvement in Castiel becoming who he is, and Cas knows for a _fact_ that his dad is a petty, self-centered, abandoning sonofabitch who plays head games and didn’t deserve to be loved. It’s a pretty low bar to do better than that.

Dean still does whatever he can, though, even though how fragile Rachel seems scares the _shit_ out of him. He browses blogs, and is careful of her soft spot. When Rachel cries at night, he’s pretty much always the one who’s up and at ‘em first, since Cas sleeps like he’s catching up for a couple of eons. Dean can get a bottle heated up just right half-dead and with no memory at all of doing it until he’s got a baby snuggled up tight in one arm and grabbing onto her bottle with both chubby hands.

And Rachel, spit-up and dirty diapers—and fucking _diaper rash,_ God, Dean feels like such a failure the first time that happens—and terrifying teething fevers aside, seems like an easy kid, as far as babies go. When she’s real fussy, they take her out for a drive, and she’s cooing—or sleeping—in minutes. She claps her fat little hands when he sings Zepp to her, and laughs when she farts. ‘Cause damn, yeah, turns out? She’s Dean’s kid, too.

Dean’s got pretty much zero point of comparison for what normal babies are like, because his memories of Sam’s babyhood are sort of hazy and every single damned time they see Sam's and Eileen's twins, they always seem like they're on the verge of a meltdown. Since they see each other almost weekly, that's kind of saying something.

Sam tells him, mouth pinching jealously, “Since she’s never once interrupted your sex life by crying at a bad time? She’s definitely an angel.”

(Since Dean didn’t tell Sam anything about their sex life, that means that Cas did. Goddammit, Cas.)

Not that they _have_ much sex at all in the first few months until she starts sleeping through the night, because they're just too damned tired. (It's not the fact that they’re both guys in their forties, either, dammit.) But Dean prefers to think that that getting better again after is just good luck and good timing. The idea of their little baby kiddo actually _monitoring_ and _being considerate of_ their sex life freaks him the fuck out.

Dean’s never asking Cas if it’s possible, because Cas almost definitely knows the answer and Dean just does. Not. Want. To. Know.

Besides, dammit, watching Cas sprawled out on the bed with their kidlet skin to skin on top of his bare chest, holding two tiny hands in his and very seriously telling her, “Yes, I know the hanging gardens of Babylon were nice, but growing your own tomatoes is even nicer. You’ll see?” Shit, Dean’s poor fucking heart can’t take it.

It’s good. Life is… it’s really good. Dean sprains his ankle at work, going ass over teakettle over a bench when he was walking backwards, and it’s just him and Rachel and his foot up all of one day while Cas is off at a flower show. She gums at her Sophie la Giraffe (Dean does not understand the appeal of the damned thing, it’s just a rubber giraffe, but she loves it) and looks those blue, thick-lashed eyes up at him adoringly.

Everyone who sees her thinks she’s Cas’s. She is, obviously, but damn, she really does look it.

“You were a good idea,” Dean tells their kiddo, reaching for her face with a throw rag to wipe off a roll of spit, “and I love you. Even when you stink.” He wrinkles his nose. “And you want to listen to Baby Shark.”

She drools at him, and chomps harder on her toy. Well, that’s about as much of an answer as he expected.

(It’s getting easier to say ‘I love you.’ A little.)

It’s their seven-year anniversary, September the 18th, and Rachel’s two. She’s old enough to ask “Why pie?”

(Her enunciation's pretty great. ‘Papa’ was her first word—well, if it’d been ‘mama’ Dean would’ve wondered what the fuck was wrong with the world, and he’s not even mad it wasn’t ‘dada,’ because the way it made Cas go all happy and choked up? Totally worth it. But her second word being ‘pie?’ That’s definitely his kid, too, right there.)

“Because we are celebrating being married. I love your dad very much,” Cas tells her, and cuts her a small piece of warm apple pie, setting it into her plastic baby bowl and putting her spoon carefully into her little fist. Rachel pats interestedly at the filling with her other hand, instead. Dean’s almost sure she’s left-handed. Cas denies it.

Dean doesn’t even bother to tell Cas just how much of that pie is going to end up all over her. Either he knows, or he’s fooling himself. It’s also Cas’s turn to do laundry, anyway.

Cas cuts his blue eyes up at Dean. He’s clean-shaven, his face smooth for the occasion—even though it’s just the three of them at home; fucking _adorable—_ but there’s a heavy smattering of grey in his temples, now. His hair is still thick, but it’s not quite as dark anymore, either.

“I do, you know,” he says—like there’s any way Dean could possibly fucking doubt it. Cas has proved it in ways no-one should ever have to; Dean will spend his lifetime trying to show him even a fraction of it back. “I love you.”

“You just said that,” Dean teases, through the little knot that still ties in his throat every damned time Cas says it. Even now, even all these years later. Cas’s smile is so much better, now, though—joyful, without the ache, without the hurt and the hopelessness. “You always say it.”

“It bears saying,” Cas answers, with a little shrug. “It always has.”

Rachel’s young enough that she doesn’t care when Dean walks around the table and pulls Cas to his feet, wrapping himself around his ex-angel as they kiss in their kitchen—slow and soft, the familiar flirt of Cas’s tongue against his bottom lip, Cas’s contented sway into the line of his body. She just squeals “Yummy!” and bangs on the tray table of her high chair with her spoon. The bowl clatters ominously. There’s going to be a mess already when they turn around, Dean just knows it.

But he takes the time to whisper, “Love you, too,” into Cas’s lips, because Dean can say those words there, even though he sometimes still has trouble saying them loud.

Of course, Rachel’s also so hopped up on sugar that evening that it takes _a really fucking long while_ to settle her down—one escape attempt from the bath, two readings of Goodnight Moon, and one of Where Do Diggers Sleep At Night, even in her favorite pajamas. And sure as hell Dean’s not giving up his anniversary sex, no fucking way, no matter how late it is or that he has to get up for work in the morning.

Not that Dean thinks that going to bed without getting his husband naked is even on the table. At least not from the way Cas has him by the belt and is dragging him down the hallway by the time Rachel’s bedroom door is closed.

So by the time Dean realizes halfway to work the next morning that he forgot last month’s shop invoices (Cas was taking a second look over them since something’s not quite working out with the numbers) well, he’s already resigned himself to being late. He even left them _right_ on the goddamned map table to make sure he didn’t forget them, dammit, but he was sleepy and fucked-out and a little sore on top of short of time as he left. He might’ve taken a few extra minutes in bed in the morning with his leg thrown over Cas’s hip, just cuddling in, and it turned into more than a few.

So what the hell—if Dean’s going to go back home and grab them, he’s going to take just a few more steps in, see if he can steal just one last kiss from his husband.

It’s the day after their damned seventh anniversary. The boys at the garage can laugh at him for being a sap if they want. They’ve got no idea it’s actually somewhere close to the fucking _twentieth_.

But Cas has gone back to sleep, and Dean stalls at the bedroom door, his heart so full he thinks he can taste it when he swallows.

Cas made himself his pillow nest, of course, surrounding himself with mounds of them—it’s pretty much always cool enough in the bunker that he goes looking for the warm spot every morning he doesn’t wake up first. His lush pink mouth is open, and he’s not snoring anymore, but since he’s on his side, he’s definitely drooling. His hair is so fucked up that Dean couldn’t have made it any worse if he tried. He knows: he’s tried.

But Cas has got company—at some point between when Dean left and came back, Rachel crawled her way into their bed. She’s tried to do that a bunch of times at night since she’s in a big-girl bed, now, rather than a crib, but normally she gets a kiss from each of them and then gets frog-marched right back to her own quarters, thanks.

Now, considering how comfortable they look, Dean wonders how often she’s managed to sneak back in _after_ he leaves.

Their daughter is lying all the way sprawled like a puppy over Cas, completely horizontal and facedown, her knees and shoulders supported by the bolsters of the pillow nest. She still probably wouldn’t be able to keep balanced where she is if not for the fact that Cas has one hand draped on her back to steady her, even dead asleep like he is. Rachel’s bright red Steve McQueen is stuffed under his chin.

Even as Dean watches, his phone up because he can’t _not_ document this for fucking posterity, Rachel reaches over and grabs the edge of the pillows, wedging her face into it with a happy sigh. They both heave a little in their sleep, and Cas rubs her back absently, smoothing down the edge of her Paw Patrol pajamas.

Definitely Cas’s kid.

Looks like maybe they should get Rachel some more pillows, too.

Dean wipes his eyes as he steps back outside—goddammit, it’s bright out here, ain’t it?

“Jack?” Dean says, a hand on Baby’s flank, raising his eyes to the clear blue Kansas sky overhead. “Hey.”

 _“Yes, Dean?”_ Jack answers, prompt and soft in the back of his mind.

He probably thinks that Dean’s going to ask for something. He’s not, though. Dean swallows down the tightness in his throat and the warm sticky happiness in his eyes. When’s the last time they asked the kid over for family dinner? Probably Sam remembered to, last week, or Cas—Dean hopes so. Most of the time Jack can’t make it, but they always set a place for him anyway. The local places they eat at have stopped asking why, after all these years.

“We’re meeting Sam and Eileen and the kiddos in Beloit this Saturday morning, they’ve got this little street fair thing going,” he offers. “Think you can drop by?”

The silence in his brain doesn’t sound like silence, it sounds like thinking. _“I like street fairs!”_ Jack answers, cheerily, after that pause. _“I’ll try.”_

“Great, great. We miss you, kid,” Dean says. “And, uh… thanks for this.” Because he doesn’t say it often enough. He doesn’t say it nearly often enough. “Thanks for all this.”

Jack laughs—the same way Cas still does, like the feeling of laughter is a surprise.

“ _Oh, no!_ ” their son—their first son—chuckles, softly. _“No, Dean. You did this all on your own.”_

~fin~

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a real thing. They call themselves "Pastafarians." Yup. (Seriously, though, they're lovely people, and the whole premise is that of scientific inquiry, the differentiation of correlation and causation, and they do indeed legally officiate weddings.)
> 
> The prompt(s): Dean knew he was gone on Cas from that first kiss. What he didn't know was that after years of marriage, he'd still find new things to love. Watching Cas, mostly asleep, tugging all of the pillows into a little nest on their bed though.... Well. It was a good thing hearts couldn't actually explode from love. Dean might yet drown in sap, though.
> 
> And: (once, Dean forgot his travel mug and had to turn around, and of course he peeked into their bedroom to see if he could sneak a kiss before going to work. No such luck, but he did get a picture of Cas drooling in the nest, their two year old in Bob the Builder pajamas sprawled sideways over him, Cas's careful hand keeping the kid close despite the toy car smushed against his chin.)
> 
> How could I resist?
> 
> This lovely prompt (and quite a lot of the joy in the world) came from the [Profound Bond Discord Server](https://discord.gg/profoundbond)\--come join us!


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